New Teams and New Friendships: Gazisehir Gaziantepspor Congratulates Caykur Rizespor on Promotion to the Turkish Super League

The final match of the 2018 Turkish Spor Toto First Division, between Gazisehir Gaziantepspor and Caykur Rizespor, saw an interesting scene. The Gazisehir FK players lined up to congratulate the champions, Caykur Rizespor, while the latter entered the stadium with a banner reading “We Wish Caykur Rizespor Succeds in the Super League”. While this is clearly good sportsmanship, it is also a sign of the kind of institutional power which has taken hold of Turkish football.

As I have written before, Gazisehir Gaziantepspor—itself a re-invented form of Gaziantep Buyuksehir Belediyespor (formerly the municipality’s team)—is a cheap replacement for the former Gaziantepspor which, for years, represented southeastern Turkey in the country’s first division. With them now out of the picture (indeed slated to drop down to the third tier of Turkish football just one year after dropping out of the Super League) a new hegemonic football power is rising out of Turkey’s southeast; Gazisehir Gaziantepspor (whose name is conspicuously similar to Istanbul’s similarly invented Basaksehirspor) might well fly the flag for Turkish football in the region going forward.

TRT Sports reports that many high ranking political officials including the Minister for Youth and Sport Osman Askin Bak, the ruling AKP’s [Justice and Development Party] Vice Chairman Hayati Yazici, the Turkish [AKP] secretary General Fahri Kasirga, and the Turkish Football Federation’s Deputy Chairman (and UEFA Executive Committee member) Servet Yardimci attended the match. This suggests that a cultural changing of the guard is underway.

In fact, the two teams even congratulated one another on their seasons via social media by using local dialects; the two teams–with Rizespor being the team from AKP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s home town—are both supported by the Turkish political class. The fact that one of the bureaucrats who attended the final match of the season in the Turkish second tier is also a UFEA official is not insignificant. Indeed, it shows the continuing influence of a global transnational capitalist class on local processes—like football—in Turkey; it also shows the degree to which the Turkish state has become connected to globalization and globalism more generally.